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CT-G01-Mayday $19.99
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CT-G01-Mayday
Publisher: Far Future Enterprises - Traveller
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/08/2022 01:23:27

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/05/review-retrospective-traveller-board.html

I can't really talk about Traveller without mentioning my history with the game, or more to the point, my non-existent history with at least one aspect of the game. The Traveller Boardgames.

I remember reading ads for Traveller in Dragon and White Dwarf Magazines and among the RPG books and very cool looking minis, there were the board games. I remember reading about Azhanti High Lightning in particular. This was a board game and yet it could be used WITH the Traveller RPG. It even included material that could be added to your Traveller RPG OR played completely on its own. Then imagine my surprise that this was not the only one.

Long-time readers will know this was the start of something I call my "Traveller Envy." Even then in the early 80s, I was blown away by the amount of material for this game. RPGs, Boardgames, starship minis. It was enough to make a die-hard D&D player like me jealous. Sure, I had Dungeon! but that is not quite the same is it?

Sadly, and long-time readers know this too, I never got the chance to play any of them.

Fast forward to, well, last week. I picked up three of the board games from DriveThruRPG. These are PDFs, but they are, as far as I can tell, complete. They are PDFs though.

I want to review them, but I really have no context for them save they are, to me, worth everything I paid. Honestly just to see what they are all about was worth it even if I never get to play them.

General Overview

I picked up three games, Imperium, Mayday, and Azhanti High Lightning. All three share similarities. There is s set of printed rules that are easy to read. There is a board game that really doubles as an awesome map. And there are counters. If anything is the weakest link here it is the counters. I have, with other games, tried printing and gluing to cardstock (gotta wait for the ink to dry), but that is time-consuming. I have been considering a completely futuristic plan. I would use my HDMI projector to project down on a table and use 3D printed starships. I have found a few online and I am 100% certain there are more. It would be far more time-consuming than laser printing and gluing, but it would be 1000x so much cooler. Thankfully the ships would not need to be huge so I could do a few at a time. I wouldn't even need to spend a lot of time painting them, just a solid color the same as the counter.

Mayday (1978)

This one seems to be more explicitly linked to Traveller and is in fact Game 1. The Mayday in question is the infamous "mayday" of the Free Trader Beowulf. This is a game of ship-to-ship combat. It was part of GDW's Series 120 games. These were designed to play in two-hours or less.

The Mayday is presented as a single PDF. Thre are 15 pages of rules. 1 page of counters. And a counter manifest/inventory (Excel printout). A board/map of a space hex-grid, and a scan of the box cover. In general, this scan feels much more useful than Imperium did. I can get a blank hex grid like this from my favorite local game store and I can print out all the counters I need, as I need, or use the 3D printing idea I have.

While this game is more explicitly linked to Traveller, I see it could be used for any sort of ship-to-ship combat. I could even try my MCRN Barkeith vs. the USS Protector. Might take some work, but the Barkeith would be a lot easier to do in the Traveller universe.

--

It is hard to give these a proper review since the only proper proof is playing them. One day maybe, but for now I can honestly say my curiosity has been satisfied.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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